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Experts, Mental States, And Acts, Christopher Slobogin
Experts, Mental States, And Acts, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This article, written for a symposium on "Guilt v. Guiltiness: Are the Right Rules for Trying Factual Innocence Inevitably the Wrong Rules for Trying Culpability?," argues that the definition of expertise in the criminal justice system, derived in the federal courts and in most states from Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Co., should vary depending on whether the issue involved is past mental state or past conduct. While expert psychological testimony about past acts ought to be based on scientifically verifiable assertions, expert psychological testimony about subjective mental states relevant to criminal responsibility need not meet the same threshold. This …
Psychiatric Evidence In Criminal Trials: To Junk Or Not To Junk?, Christopher Slobogin
Psychiatric Evidence In Criminal Trials: To Junk Or Not To Junk?, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article begins, in Part I, with a brief review of the past four decades" of psychiatric and psychological testimony in criminal trials (henceforth referred to simply as "psychiatric testimony"). Although this review cannot be called comprehensive, it does make clear that, contrary to what the popular literature would have us believe, psychiatric innovation is neither at an all time high nor the prevalent form of opinion testimony by mental health professionals. At the same time, such "nontraditional" expert opinion from clinicians, on those rare occasions when it does occur, has changed over the past few decades in both content …